


are you shining, just for me

by crosswalks



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kind of..., Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Stargazing, god i need to have more confidence in my tags, kind of, very light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28183479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crosswalks/pseuds/crosswalks
Summary: “Well, if you’re so sure Tsukki,” Yamaguchi teases. “There’s this one that I really liked, about how the stars in the night sky came to be…”Kei shifts to lie on his side, cuddling deeper into Yamaguchi’s lap. Freckled hands return to their place in Kei’s hair, and he burrows into the warmth.Yamaguchi huffs out a laugh, continuing, “Okay, so um… Like I said before, the night sky used to be empty… Wait, wait, hold on. Let me start over... Okay. So, there are these two guys, Akaashi and Bokuto…”--Yamaguchi tells Kei a story.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 11
Kudos: 40
Collections: Haikyuu Secret Santa 2020





	are you shining, just for me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carminare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carminare/gifts).



> HELLO MJ!! Happy HQSS exchange!!! I wrote this for your mythology prompt, I really hope you like it!
> 
> (title from “city of stars” la la land)

Kei’s head is perched comfortably in Yamaguchi’s lap, as they lie together on the mountainside. The grass is sparse, this time of year, but the wind manages to blow through it anyway, rustling the land all around them. The grating call of summer cicadas has long since faded, but irrationally, Kei thinks he can still hear them— the ghosts of their melodic chittering echoing through the air.

The blanket laid beneath them shifts as Kei moves to get more comfortable. He stretches his neck with a satisfying _crack_ , making Yamaguchi giggle: a tinkling sound. One of Kei’s favorites.

He barely bites back a smile, instead choosing to lift his gaze to the night sky above them. Yamaguchi follows it with a grin, settling on the waning moon in the northeast. Its curve distantly reminds Kei of a bird’s wing, arced to take flight into the dark.

“Hey, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi whispers, condensation escaping from his mouth like mist. Kei watches the whorls of it curl and dissipate, before grunting in response.

Yamaguchi smiles fondly, running a hand through Kei’s hair, before saying,

“Can you believe that these stars weren’t always here?”

Kei pauses, taking in Yamaguchi’s words.

“An empty universe,” he starts.

“Yeah, exactly! And now there’s so… there’s so much that there’s almost more _star_ than sky. I know that isn’t true, really, but wow! It feels a little magical, you know?”

Kei looks up at his boyfriend’s face, washed in the faint glow of moonlight, and their electric lantern. _Yeah_ , he wants to say, _almost like a miracle_.

The mere thought of saying that aloud makes him want to gag a little though, so he keeps it to himself, settling on a hum in lieu of a response.

Yamaguchi’s gaze softens; Kei pretends to be focused on stargazing. They sit in a companionable silence, only disturbing their position to pull one of their several blankets over themselves, when the wind starts to sting.

Kei starts falling asleep to the feeling of fingers carding through his hair, until he hears (or rather feels) a heavy sigh wrack through Yamaguchi’s body. Kei focuses his eyes on his boyfriend’s face— his eyes are heavy with some faraway emotion he can’t immediately identify.

“Yamaguchi,” he rasps, voice heavy with almost-sleep, “what’s wrong.”

Yamaguchi’s eyes lighten the second they meet his, Kei notices. A slight ache grows in his chest at that. Yamaguchi opens his mouth to reply, and Kei can already tell where this conversation is going.

“Don’t say ‘nothing,’” Kei interrupts, before Yamaguchi can do such a thing.

His boyfriend’s hand stutters in their path across Kei’s scalp, making him twitch with ticklishness. Yamaguchi bites his lip to hide a smile.

“Tell me, if you want,” Kei says. The ghost cicadas buzz louder in his ears.

“It’s nothing to worry about, Tsukki, it’s just…”

Yamaguchi pauses, his gaze growing distant. Kei waits for him to return.

“Being here with you, it reminds me of these stories my mom used to tell me. Myths, I guess, though I think she was making them up. I could never find them in books or anything, or even on the internet,” he says with a laugh, soft and absent. “Remembering them makes me kind of sad. Nostalgic, I guess.”

Kei understands. He feels that way about Akiteru sometimes, still, despite all of the bridges they’ve rebuilt together.

“Tell me one?” Kei asks.

“I don’t know Tsukki, it’s been so long I can barely remember them… I dunno if you’ll like them very much, I’m not a great storytel—”

“Tell me.”

Yamaguchi’s eyes crinkle in amusement at Kei’s stubbornness. He takes the hand he has in Kei’s hair and settles in on the side of his face, the tips of his fingers tapping on Kei’s chin.

“Well, if you’re so sure Tsukki,” Yamaguchi teases. “There’s this one that I really liked, about how the stars in the night sky came to be…”

Kei shifts to lie on his side, cuddling deeper into Yamaguchi’s lap. Freckled hands return to their place in Kei’s hair, and he burrows into the warmth.

Yamaguchi huffs out a laugh, continuing, “Okay, so um… Like I said before, the night sky used to be empty… Wait, wait, hold on. Let me start over... Okay. So, there are these two guys, Akaashi and Bokuto…”

— — —

_The universe is empty, at the moment._

_Not the entire universe— Akaashi wouldn’t be so naive to believe such a thing. He is young, relatively: has known nothing but the home in which they currently reside, but. Sometimes, his older colleagues, their histories kept hidden from their subordinates, will look out toward the empty sky. They gaze into the emptiness, sometimes for so long that they fail to respond to their names. They never speak of what, or who, they yearn for, but Akaashi deduces from the yawning void of their dilated pupils: it must be something that could fill that seemingly endless chasm._

_Akaashi doesn’t know of a world beyond their own, but he thinks he knows the feeling anyway, of yearning. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Bokuto shape his spheres of hydrogen and helium, gaseous and explosive in his broad palms._

_“Aaaand… there… I think I got it! Look, Keiji, you gotta see this!”_

_Akaashi lifts his fingers from his own creation: a set of rocky turrets, triangular in shape, molded from the rough material Komi had dropped off as a gift._ For when you’re assigned your own planet _, the note had said._ Don’t work yourself into a frenzy over this anyway, Akaashi, you’re going to do fine!

 _In the present moment, he turns his gaze to his partner. Bokuto’s face shines ever brighter in the fiery glow of his magic, a tumultuous mass in his palms. His eyes lift to meet Keiji’s, ferocious and magnificent and_ hot _, and Keiji’s response dies in his throat. His body floods with the warmth._

_“So? Whaddya think? I think I’m finally ready to fill the sky with these!” Bokuto says, not paying any mind to Akaashi’s lack of response._

_Ready to fill the sky. Of course, Akaashi thinks. Since he and Bokuto were born, Akaashi from the Earth god and Bokuto the Heavens, they’d been training their magic for this: to one day leave their court, and go on to create worlds of their own._

_Their magic had never been compatible, at least not in the way that would keep them together, after their officiation as true Deities. Land, and sky._

_Despite knowing this from the moment they met, Akaashi has let himself get attached to Bokuto anyway._

_His fellow trainee throws the ball of heat high above his head, and rears his arm back, smacking his palm against the surface— the ball ricochets into the distance of space, leaving behind a bright trail of light that crackles with energy. Akaashi watches, his eyes widening at how it shines in the darkness, a burst of brightness against the gloom._

_They watch the ball settle itself, a thin pinprick of light eons away. Bokuto turns to Akaashi then, his smile ecstatic._

_“I really think this is the formula!” he gushes. “Man, I can’t wait to show Yamiji-sensei. You think he’ll let me leave this time, Keiji?”_

_Akaashi looks from Bokuto’s face, to the lone light out in the distance. Akaashi isn’t yet bound by anything, not time, or space; he could leap and retrieve Bokuto’s light and take it home with him. He would be able to do this forever, until he is assigned his own planet._

_Time doesn’t quite exist yet in their world, not in a way that’s significant. But Akaashi knows that they will be separated soon. Time doesn’t quite exist in their world, hasn’t mattered much to Akaashi for as long as he can remember. But he finds himself wishing for a little more of it, to spend with Bokuto._

_“Yes, Bokuto-san,” he responds. “Your hard work will be paid off, at last.”_

_Bokuto laughs at that, rubbing his palms together to spark the fire for another ball. Akaashi tries his best to commit the sound to memory._

_Scant moments later, Bokuto has another ball in his hands, this one silver instead of golden. It burns quietly, unlike the popping and fizzing of the first star— its chemistry is more controlled, though the heat it emits is just as intense._

_“What should I call them?” Bokuto asks, his eyes boring into Akaashi’s._

_Akaashi thinks for a moment, wanting to name it something honorable. He is happy that Bokuto trusts him enough to ask._

_“Stars,” he replies. Bokuto’s expression brightens, and Akaashi looks to his own earthy creation._

_“What should I name mine?” he asks Bokuto._

_“Hmmm,” Bokuto hums, thumb and index finger framing his chin. Akaashi watches as his eyebrows furrow and his tongue pokes out of his mouth. Commits it all to memory._

_“Ah..! You should call them mountains!” Bokuto declares._

_They grin at each other then, Bokuto slapping Akaashi on the back encouragingly. He steps back, and lobs the second star into space, and they watch it settle into its new home, in the glow of the first._

_The universe is a little fuller, now._

_It won’t remain empty for much longer— the halls of the Deities’ court rush with activity, and Bokuto and Akaashi are ready to depart._

— — —

_Akaashi gets assigned to a terrestrial planet, a small one deep in the Milky Way. There’s a lot more water than Akaashi had expected. He estimates that it must make up 70% of its surface— ponders what may come to lurk in its depths._

_Akaashi names the planet Earth: makes himself at home. When the sun is out, he tends to the plants that grow lush and wild all over the planet, even stretching their roots onto rock and into the sea. Akaashi does not try to control the ways they choose to grow; there is a certain kind of beauty to it, he thinks. Instead, he clips their dead limbs when they prove burdensome— urges some of them to shed their leaves, come wintertime. He whispers secrets to shy flowers, coaxing their petals to open for sunlight._

_When the sun disappears beneath the horizon, Akaashi sets to work on the earth. This is familiar to him: he extends a silent thanks to Komi back at the court. The earth is slow to take to Akaashi’s presence— it’s spent millenia undisturbed, after all. Akaashi can sense that it is quite content in its ways, so he doesn’t try to push._

_Instead, he urges the wind to brush up against the harsh edges of canyons. He pulls the rush of water against curves of rivers, softening their bends. He calls on the moon to lift waves in the ocean, so they can welcome the cliffs back to the sea._

_He thinks, often, of Bokuto._

_Moments of respite are brief, with Akaashi’s work. When he finds them, he often looks to the dark sky, waiting for a sign._

_He waits, night after night, then doesn’t: the clouds patch themselves up over the sky._

— — —

_Akaashi is conversing with the horned owls when a piercing whistle whips through the air, shaking him onto his feet._

_The owls scatter in a cacophonous flutter of wings and squawks. In the distance, Akaashi sees a trail of fire descend through the night, bright and sparking with energy. It crashes straight into the earth in the distance, sending up great plumes of smoke. Akaashi stares, not quite believing his eyes._

_He looks up, and feels himself shake. The sheer mass and speed of the meteor had dispersed the clouds he’d so carefully guided over the night sky, revealing thousa— no, millions, of stars._

_He notices that one stands out, a bit brighter than the others, and smiles to himself, relieved._

_It feels like a promise._

_Soon, the night makes way for morning, and the stars fade from view. Akaashi turns his back on the sky, then: works harder to redirect rivers, to raise and topple mountains, knowing that Bokuto can see his own gifts as he sees Bokuto’s._

_He finishes his work, then sits back—_

_waits._

— — —

Yamaguchi finishes his story with a prolonged sigh, and a goofy grin on his face.

“And they just wait like that, I think, forever,” he concludes, with another cheesy sigh. “I think it’s so romantic how they share everything they do with each other, even when they’re worlds apart…”

Kei looks at the moon then— the very tip of the crescent has just overlapped with one of the mountain’s peaks, as it does almost every night.

“Do they ever meet again,” he asks, mostly to humor Yamaguchi.

Yamaguchi looks thoughtful at that. Tsukishima looks at him as he’s distracted, observes how his freckles are fading slightly as winter dredges on. Regardless, his skin almost seems to glow in the moonlight, warm and ethereal.

“I think they could! My mom always ended the story there, but I don’t see why not. Maybe once their court contracts expire, or their replacements get called in or something.”

Yamaguchi nods assuredly at Kei as he finishes… whatever it is that he’s talking about, which makes Kei snort in amusement.

“You really know how to ruin a moment, Yamaguchi,” he says.

Yamaguchi pinches Kei’s cheek, much to his chagrin.

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi coos, “I didn’t know we were having a moment! You must really like me if you think that was a _moment_ ,” Yamaguchi teases, as his smile turns into an all-out laugh at Kei’s expense.

Kei wills back his blush, which is difficult, because Yamaguchi’s smile is… distracting.

It lifts the corners of his mouth impossibly high, revealing Yamaguchi’s teeth. They’re still a bit crooked from when they got knocked out when he was small, but Kei loves the way they look (the way they feel under his tongue). Yamaguchi’s smile takes the shape of its own little crescent moon, slightly imperfect; Kei knows undoubtedly which of the two he prefers.

A _shut up, Yamaguchi_ later, they’re sitting in silence again, both appeased by Yamaguchi’s story. Kei looks to the moon again, and Yamaguchi follows his gaze.

“What are you thinking about, Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks, still looking at the moon.

Kei is thinking about love, unfortunately. He’s thinking about Bokuto and his universe filled with stars, of Akaashi and the mountains and riverbends he molds in return. He’s thinking about how, if Yamaguchi was a mountain and Kei was stranded on an island in the moon, he’d steer the celestial being as close as he could to Yamaguchi’s peaks, every night. He thinks of the space between them— thinks of closing it, again and again.

“Nothing important,” Kei says instead. “Tell me another myth?”

The stars twinkle above them, otherworldly and all-encompassing. A blanket, a city made of proclamations of love, burning light attempting to make up for distance, for time.

The ringing in Kei’s ear fades, the ghosts of summer behind him for now. The chime of Yamaguchi’s voice replaces it, cascading over him like spring rain.

**Author's Note:**

> <333


End file.
